Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: foo_podcatcher (Read 213944 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #250
Thanks for the updates, nausea!

I described a behaviour here that still seems mysterious to me: i can't explain what and why it is happening. Hope, you can say some words to it.

I have one small feature request: i would like to have an option so that a doubleclick instead of a singleclick sends the content to the podcatcher playlist. The singleclick behaviour causes the changing of podcatcher playlist in situations i don't want the changing: f.e. using context menu of other podcasts.


foo_podcatcher

Reply #251
q-stankovic:
Sometimes feeds have different infos for the casts than the files themselves, and no length. When foo_podcatcher creates the playlists it uses the info from the feeds, but when you play a file foobar2000 gets the tags from the file. You can use the retag downloads option to help with this.

Speech:
Thanks for the detailed comments.

The download path needs to have a filename included, for example: file://S:\Media\Podcasts\%album%\%filename_ext%
(I now realise that the feed preferences dialog says 'Location' rather than 'Path' - in an earlier version it was in fact a directory.)

I'm concerned about files with illegal characters being created, and I'll look at this this weekend. I replace illegal characters, but perhaps there are additional rules I need to account for.

I'll take your playlist feature requests into account when making changes. I like the idea of automatically archiving listened podcasts, or not listing them based on the playcount, but I hesitate about deleting files because of the "except in some cases if they are really good and want to keep them" case. There is already a preference to only show downloaded and new podcasts in playlists.

I haven't been able to find any example FeedDemon OPML files online, so could you send me one in a personal message on the forum here. A single outline element should be enough.

Also, foobar2000 streams not downloaded podcast files over http. So don't worry, they are not filling up you hard-disk somewhere.


foo_podcatcher

Reply #253
Sometimes feeds have different infos for the casts than the files themselves, and no length. When foo_podcatcher creates the playlists it uses the info from the feeds, but when you play a file foobar2000 gets the tags from the file. You can use the retag downloads option to help with this.

I am not sure how that can help me: generally i don't download the files of a podcast - just when i need them on other devices. would it be a great loss of performance to load the info from files on creating the podcatcher playlist?

foo_podcatcher

Reply #254
I'm sorry if this has been covered before, but I did a search on this thread for "pause" and "resume" and didn't find anything.

So, long story short, I have a very unstable internet connection and would really appreciate being able to resume downloads. Pausing would also be a nice touch.

Also, there's a slight bug: Sometimes, when a download goes awry and then I quit foobar, the foobar2000.exe process remains running until I kill it with Task Manager.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #255
Hi,

opml-export doesn't work here (version 0.2.3/foobar 1.1.2). When I choose "export", type in a filename and click "save", the dialogue closes but nothing happens - there is no opml-file.

One more minor request: While podcatcher is downloading, the download-dialogue gets in the way/covers the podcatcher-playlist, especially when there are several different downloads going on. It would be nice to be able to minimize or at least move the download-dialogue.

Thanks for your great work!

foo_podcatcher

Reply #256
hi there,

i just upgraded to the current version of podcatcher. now it keeps asking me if i wanted to subscribe to one of my podcasts. the window just keeps popping up again and again, wether i click "yes" or "no".

any suggestions on how to solve this?

cheers

foo_podcatcher

Reply #257
foo_podcatcher 0.2.3 beta keeps trying to download items which are no longer in the feed, I think.

I created a feed by scraping a website.  Since feeding it to foo_podcatcher I have made various changes, including limiting the number of items.  foo_podcatcher seems to still be trying to download items which are no longer in the feed.

Is there some sort of cache that records what needs downloading which it is still using because the orignal error was seen to be temporary?  Is there any way I can tell it to give up?  The current "Download Range" is not being adhered to.

Seems like it would be good to update the queue using the current feed.  Also, or alternatively, some way to tell it to give up after X tries, if that is indeed my problem.
I'm on a horse.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #258
Thanks for this great plugin - very handy indeed.
However, I found some behaviour regarding tagging that IMHO is a bug that needs to be fixed. The behaviour is seen for all podcast feeds I'm subscribed to.

Here's an actual example for a podcast from this feed:
http://www.dradio.de/rss/podcast/sendungen/diereportage/

Say the FEED info for a podcast is this:
Artist: DKULTUR
Title: Der geläuterte Samenspender
Album: dradio-Die Reportage
Date: 2011-01-09

Now, once I start playing the podcast, the info is read from the remote FILE, and it looks like this:
Artist: Wenderoth, Andreas [Note: this will be different each time, depending on who authored the podcast in question]
Title: Der geläuterte Samenspender
Album: Deutschlandradio Kultur
Date: 2011

This is also the info that the file contains when I download it directly (if you want to check: http://podcast-mp3.dradio.de/podcast/2011/...05_61ec8bc0.mp3 )

This is all fine.

But now I try downloading using foo_podcatcher.
If I choose "re-tag" globally, the FEED info is read and then written to the downloaded file. I guess this is functioning as designed.
If I choose "don't re-tag" for the feed in question, the behaviour is the same, i.e. it looks the "don't re-tag" doesn't actually get applied if I set it for a particular feed.
But that's not what bugs me.
Here's the issue:
If I choose "don't re-tag" globally, the file is downloaded, and the tags are wiped from the downloaded file. So instead of the tags in the file (which are there and which I would actually like to have in the downloaded file), I get a file without any tags whatsoever, which shows up - quite unpleasantly - like this:
Artist: ?
Title: drk_20110109_1305_61ec8bc0
Album: ?
Date: ?


I'm using foo_podcatcher 0.2.3 beta.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #259
my podcatcher keeps buggin me about one feed i have.
every 60 seconds it asks me if i want to subscribe to it. wether i click yes or no doesn't matter.
the console says:

Podcatcher: Finished checking for new podcasts. Checking again in 60s.

it only seems to check this single feed. although the global settings say to check hourly. it then tries to download a file from that feed, creating a *.part file, just to tell me in the console:

Podcatcher: Downloading podcast item 'http://www.astrobio.net:80/video/http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-01-24.mp3' to 'file://D:\-= Downloadz =-\Podcasts\NASA Astrobiology Magazine\AWA_11-01-24.mp3'
Podcatcher: Error downloading 'http://www.astrobio.net:80/video/http://traffic.libsyn.com/arewealone/AWA_11-01-24.mp3' (Length of object is unknown)
Location not parsable: "D:\-= Downloadz =-\Podcasts\NASA Astrobiology Magazine\AWA_11-01-24.mp3.part", reason: Unsupported file format

it worked fine for all other episodes from that particular feed.

using 0.2.3 beta.

cheers

EDIT:

looks like i solved the problem.

deleted the feed, closed everything, deleted the *.part file and restarted foobar.
then added the feed again.
suddenly stopped asking about subscribing to the feed every minute. seems like the file in question is a video. it just tried to download it once, didn't work, and then it stopped triying, and therefore stopped bugging me about it.

strange thing though, but looks like it's ok now ;-)

foo_podcatcher

Reply #260
Thanks for the reports. Looks like there are still some issues around downloading and retagging. I'll try and take a look this weekend.

HiRsch: do you have the url of the feed that keeps asking you to subscribe? It might help me debugging the issue.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #261
that would be: http://www.astrobio.net:80/podcast.xml


but as i edited in my last post, after deleting the feed, restarting foobar, and adding it again it stopped. i looked into some of the episodes' links though and think the problem might be there, as some of the late episodes show weird "podcast online" urls.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #262
FYI I removed the feed in question in #258 and re-added it to no avail.
I'm on a horse.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #263
I have a problem with the context menu of Podcatcher (version 0.2.3), using Foobar 1.1.2.
Under "context menu" in "preferences", Podcatcher has 4 options: download, archive, restore and delete podcast. All of them are enabled.
However, when I right-click on a file in the Podcatcher playlist, the last two options don't appear in the Podcatcher context menu.
Does anybody have any solutions?

foo_podcatcher

Reply #264
... Podcatcher has 4 options: download, archive, restore and delete podcast. All of them are enabled.
However, when I right-click on a file in the Podcatcher playlist, the last two options don't appear in the Podcatcher context menu.

Restore and delete only apply to archived casts. So if you archive a cast, go to the Archive playlist, and right click there you should see delete and restore.

Synthetic Soul: Deleting the casts will stop them trying to download if they aren't in the feed anymore.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #265
Speech:
The download path needs to have a filename included, for example: file://S:\Media\Podcasts\%album%\%filename_ext%
(I now realise that the feed preferences dialog says 'Location' rather than 'Path' - in an earlier version it was in fact a directory.)

I'm concerned about files with illegal characters being created, and I'll look at this this weekend. I replace illegal characters, but perhaps there are additional rules I need to account for.

I'll take your playlist feature requests into account when making changes. I like the idea of automatically archiving listened podcasts, or not listing them based on the playcount, but I hesitate about deleting files because of the "except in some cases if they are really good and want to keep them" case. There is already a preference to only show downloaded and new podcasts in playlists.

I haven't been able to find any example FeedDemon OPML files online, so could you send me one in a personal message on the forum here. A single outline element should be enough.


Thanks for your answer and for fixing the bugs I mentioned in two consecutive versions.
Also, as you requested, I sent you a FeedDemon OPML file by a private message.

I was able to follow your suggestion, but unfortunately every podcast producer has their naming rules.  If I want my podcast folder to be easy to understand and not to be a mess, I still have to manually set a download folder for each podcast.  Why can't I just change the title of every individual podcast in the Podcatcher Feed Properties, so that it's not necessary to assign a specific download path to every one of them?

Moreover, there are still illegal characters in v. 0.2.3.  As you may have noticed if you imported my OPML file and set a specific folder for podcasts (take the same name as the "outline text" tag from the OPML file, don't just keep the default download folder), podcasts containing ' or ( will transform into incomplete file names with no folder and no extension!  I consider this a serious bug, since it prevents other podcasts from being downloaded into the same file!

Now that I know better Podcatcher, I agree with you that automatically archiving podcasts would be an interesting option for most users.  Also, automatically deleting podcast files (such as the File Operations plugin does) would another interesting option; I would just delete everything by default and, if I want to keep a podcast (I rarely do), I would just restore it from the Windows Recycle Bin.

Another point I want to make is to be able to just download some podcasts, but not include them in an automatically generated playlist like "Recently downloaded".  For instance, I have some podcasts I always listen to on my Nokia smartphone, so I just want Podcatcher to download them, then I will transfer them on my digital MP3 player.  (In an utopia world, I would better like to synchronize foobar/podcatcher and my Nokia, so that I can send any podcast and also keep the "listened" indicator and keep the last position in a partially listened podcast.  But that would be too much to ask.)

One last thing: when I delete a podcast feed from the list, there are still bits about it still left in the foo_podcatcher.dll.db configuration file.  Is this file condemned to keep all the history and always grow?

I hope everything is clear here, because I put together several ideas in one post.  Hopefully they help you to build a better Podcatcher.  Thanks anyway for what you've done already!

foo_podcatcher

Reply #266
Synthetic Soul: Deleting the casts will stop them trying to download if they aren't in the feed anymore.
That's not my experience.  In fact, to test further I have completely removed the feed now (not re-subscribing as I had unsuccessfully before), and choosing "Update All Podcast Feeds" has still resulted in these download errors!

It's very possible that I'm overlooking something basic, but I just can't see what!


I'm on a horse.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #267
Synthetic Soul: You will need to delete the casts too. They will be in the Orphaned Podcasts 'feed' playlist (but will need to archived before being deleted). I've changed the behaviour in the next version to not try to download archived or orphaned casts, and to allow orphaned casts to be directly deleted.

Speech: Thanks for the OPML file. I haven't been able to reproduce the illegal characted bug though. Could you let me know the exact download path and feed/cast combo that produces it? Thanks.


foo_podcatcher

Reply #268
Speech: Thanks for the OPML file. I haven't been able to reproduce the illegal characted bug though. Could you let me know the exact download path and feed/cast combo that produces it? Thanks.


Well, it's very simple:
1. Take whatever podcast you subscribed to.
2. In the Podcatcher Feed Properties window for this podcast, assign a download path to it (i.e. "D:\My documents\Downloads\Podcasts\This isn't my best podcast (but I still like it)\%filename_ext%" ) (I purposely put the 2 illegal characters I discovered in the folder name.)
3. Watch where your files will be stored (i.e. "D:\My documents\Downloads\Podcasts\This isn" - the latter being a file with no extension, not a folder).

foo_podcatcher

Reply #269
Synthetic Soul: You will need to delete the casts too. They will be in the Orphaned Podcasts 'feed' playlist (but will need to archived before being deleted). I've changed the behaviour in the next version to not try to download archived or orphaned casts, and to allow orphaned casts to be directly deleted.
Thanks nausea.  Have now deleted podcasts.  Will report back if I still get error, but presume this will sort it.

Really handy extension BTW; many thanks.
I'm on a horse.

foo_podcatcher

Reply #270
I've just put v0.2.4 up at http://www.unkempt.co.uk/fb2k/foo_podcatcher.html

This has fixes for some of the bugs that have recently come up including the one where HiRsch's feed kept trying to re-subscribe. (The feed is badly formed so its unique id kept changing.)

Speech: I've realised that as the download paths are processed for tags you need to escape quotes and parentheses. So your example would need to be entered as D:\My documents\Downloads\Podcasts\This isn''t my best podcast '('but I still like it')'\%filename_ext%

foo_podcatcher

Reply #271
Hey, not that it's a big deal or anything, but I think the download rate calculation is off by an order of magnitude. For example, when I'm downloading a podcast, the rate in the status usually bounces between 6kB/s and 13kB/s. Besides my connection being about 100kB/s, there's also the fact that at these rates a 28MB episode would take like 45 minutes or so to download, yet they always finish in about 5 minutes. Just something odd I noticed, and thought I might as well mention.

Thanks for a great plugin BTW; between this and the ipod-synch plugin, I've been able to kick iTunes to the curb completely 

foo_podcatcher

Reply #272
Hello everyone,

I updated to the latest version of podcatcher (0.2.4) and foobar (1.1.3). Now I am unable to resume playback of a podcast after switching to another playlist.
With a previous version of podcatcher (0.1.7.4) I was able to resume playback of the podcast. It would not restart the podcast.
To reproduce this issue:
- start playback of a podcast
- during playback (do not stop) choose a track from another playlist (via double mouse click)
- return to the same podcast (via double mouse click)
- the podcast restarts at the beginning instead of resuming playback where you left off.

Could this issue be fixed. For now I have downgraded to version 0.1.7.4.

Greetings,

Ben

foo_podcatcher

Reply #273
Hi, there's something I don't get:
foobar Automatic updater always tells me that there is an update available, although I've downloaded the latest version from http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_podcatcher, which currently should be 0.2.4, but since 0.1.7.x I've never seen a stable/final release on the component page http://www.unkempt.co.uk/fb2k/foo_podcatcher.html e.g. now there only is a beta release foo_podcatcher 0.2.4 (beta)

Where do you get the final ones from ?!?

 

foo_podcatcher

Reply #274
So can i download podcasts, or will they only be downloaded after i play them? If i can download them without playing, how can i do that?